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Key Terms and Principles in Environmental Ethics
'Group 2 Presentation' Anthropocentrism: "Human-centered" ethic or world view where human well-being or interests are considered to be all that matters, everything else being valued only as a means. Biodiversity: The natural variety of life in all its forms, levels and combinations, together with the environmental conditions necessary for survival. Biodiversity includes: regional diversity, ecosystem diversity, species diversity and genetic diversity. Bioregionalism: the view that natural features should provide the defining conditions for places of community, and that secure and satisfying local lives are led by those who know a place, have learned its lore and who adapt their lifestyle to its affordances by developing its potential within ecological limits. Collapse: As Diamond defines it, "A drastic decrease in human population size and/or political/economic/social complexity, over a considerable area, for an extended time." Deontology: Any position in ethics which claims that the rightness or wrongness of actions depends on whether they correspond to our duty or not, and focuses on the inherent rightness and wrongness of acts. The word derives from the Greek word for duty, deon Ecocide: used to refer to any large-scale destruction of the natural environment or over-consumption of critical non-renewable resources(Random House. 2006). Intrinsic Value:'' A value that is attributed to something as an end and not just as a means; is believed to have value in and for itself, for its own sake. '''Instrumental Value': something that has value only because it helps achieve something else, or that you value only for its use. Precautionary Principle: '''A principle dictating that, where there is threat of serious or irreversible environmental damage, lack of full scientific certainty should not be used as a reason for postponing measures to prevent environmental degradation. In the application of the Precautionary Principle, public and private decisions should be guided by careful evaluation to avoid, wherever practicable, serious or irreversible damage to the environment; and an assessment of the risk-weighted consequences of various options. '''Prudential Anthropocentrism: the view that all the moral duties we have towards the environment are derived from our direct duties to its human inhabitants. Utilitarianism: A moral theory that says that what is morally right is whatever produces the greatest overall amount of pleasure (hedonistic utilitaranism) or happiness (eudaimonistic utilitarianism). Some utilitarians (act utilitarians) claim that consequences of actions decided the morality of the action, while rule utilitarians look at consequences of particular rules of conduct. Drawing Parallels of Societies in Diamond's Collapse In the book, Collapse, author Jared Diamond lays out a five-point framework of factors that contribute to widely recognized collapses. These sets of factors include: environmental damage, climate change, hostile neighbors, friendly trade partners, and a society’s responses to its environmental problems. Diamond asserts that environmental damage alone never proves as the sole reason for a society’s collapse – it is always a combination of other factors. We can specifically highlight how Diamond notes the heavy influence of the elite political or religious figures/groups in power that shape the environmental attitudes of a particular society. For example, he tells the case of the Anasazi at Chaco Canyon in modern day New Mexico and their neighbors. Because Chaco Canyon proved to be a center of great political and religious authority, the neighboring regions worked hard to provide it with the necessary imported resources after the Chaco Canyon area started to commit ecocide. The people of neighboring regions worked hard to provide Chaco Canyon with resources and seemed to be promised more political or religious stock by the ruling elite than what was actually delivered. Diamond notes that the Chaco Canyon case parallels the centralized resource-lacking, political hub cities like Rome and London. Modern day cities like these rely on many imports in order to keep living at the pace they have grown accustomed to. This prompts us to think how long it will be before these cities start to substantially decline in their quality of life to the point of a collapse - from not receiving enough imported necessities. We are also reminded that this particular case of the Anasazi parallels our modern day attachment to expensive lifestyles. Diamond proved enlightening and prompted us to think that many of the profitable corporations (as well as rich, elite homeowners) in the U.S. seem so materialistic to the point of never settling for alternatives in environmental resources - it seems the primary concerns consist of making a profit or the comfort of something grand in scale with unnecessary features. These concerns overshadow the notion that trade operations and imports are finite. The capitalist system in the U.S. has perpetuated profit seeking by large-scale business owners and created conditions to expect large quantities of resources from trade partners delivered in a timely manner. Today, the U.S. has too great of a dependence on oil and seemingly imports excessive amounts of it. With such a great dependence on oil for heating and gasoline, Joseph Lazzaro notes in a 2011 Daily Finance article that we cannot aggressively shift to an alternative fuel for transportation. From a general knowledge standpoint of the work being done toward environmental solutions, we have created electric cars to counter the gasoline guzzling cars. We've learned to turn diesel engines into vehicles that run solely on vegetable oils/restaurant byproducts. We've created solar energy to counter the gasoline burned in some countries for electricity. We've begun to harvest energy from the wind. Surely, there must be more investment in these solutions in the U.S. and it is seemingly a matter of appropriately distributing our funds in such a delicate, stubborn capitalist system - a task that seems like an uphill battle. The U.S. also remains in a huge trade deficit with China - not to mention recent sanitary issues regarding Chinese food and product imports. When Diamond notes in Chapter 12 of Collapse the growing list of China's environmental problems that range from invasive species to untreated waste, it is no wonder how China's export foods and products are becoming increasingly contaminated or unsafe. A 2007 NPR article by Kayla Webley noted that China has been exporting hazardous, recall-worthy products of fish, toothpaste, drugs, ceramic heaters, toy grills, toy trains, tires, and pet food to the U.S. This depicts how the problems of rapidly growing countries like China are becoming our problems in the U.S. We may arrive at the notion that a reliance on certain luxuries as commonplace could certainly prove more damaging than previously thought. Sources "Environmental Ethics."Standford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. ''Web. 04 Feb. 2012 < http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ethics-environmental/>. "Glossary of Terms in Environmental Ethics." Web. 2 Feb. 3. Lazarro, Joseph. 2011. “The Untold Story of the U.S. Trade Deficit: Rising Exports.” Daily Finance. Retrieved February 6, 2012. < http://www.dailyfinance.com/2011/02/16/rising-us-exports-trade-deficit-oil-china/>. Random House (2006) ''Unabridged Dictionary. Webley, Kayla. 2007. “List of Problem Chinese Imports Grows.” National Public Radio. Retrieved February 6, 2012. <http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=11656278>.